Go to spectrumculture.com to read our first List Inconsequential, please.
R.E.M.
Up. Reveal. Around the Sun. Accelerate. Those are the last four spectacularly mediocre albums R.E.M. has released since their last truly great record, New Adventures in Hi-Fi. The band hasn't exactly been directionless since Hi-Fi, but ever since Bill Berry's departure, Buck-Mills-Stipe haven't yet managed to craft a classic album. None of the trio's post-Berry records have been particularly awful, and each album contains a few decent tunes, but none are consistently solid from start to finish, and all of them reveal an amount of self-indulgence and filler the band's 1980s and early 1990s selves would never had stood for. They are, quite simply, average, middle of the road albums by a band we all know is capable of much better.
What's perhaps worse is that plenty of us have consequently lowered our expectations of the band. Listeners and critics generally went ape shit for Accelerate - some even had the stones to compare it to Lifes Rich Pageant and Document - but that's likely largely because its predecessors were so underwhelming. Upcoming album Collapse Into Now is planned for release this year, and maybe we all should prepare ourselves for a worst-case scenario. Today's R.E.M. is like watching a once-mighty athlete gimp through the twilight of a legendary career: despite the whiffs and errors, there's an occasional flash of brilliance, and we collectively still hold out hope for a glorious return to form. - Eric Dennis
Showing posts with label Peter Buck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peter Buck. Show all posts
Monday, January 10, 2011
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Rediscover: The Dashboard Saviors: Kitty
Rediscover:
The Dashboard Saviors
Kitty
1992
The Dashboard Saviors released three studio albums in four years - 1992's Kitty, 1993's Spinnin On Down and 1995's Love Sorrow Hatred Madness - before disbanding. Not that many people outside of Athens, GA noticed. The band was met with commercial and critical indifference throughout their brief career; a feature write-up in Rolling Stone's "New Faces" section in December 1992 was the closest the group ever came to sucking at the mainstream teat, and time has done little enhance the band's legacy. Perhaps the supreme insult, Saviors vocalist Todd McBride is better known for his connection to Vic Chesnutt than for his work with his own band: he played with Chesnutt in the La Di Das and also asked the musician to write a song with the line that opens "Isadora Duncan" on Little.
Produced by Peter Buck, Kitty remains an overlooked masterwork, with scratchy, sometimes slightly polished country-rock songs featuring McBride's nasal, reedy vocals and a core group (Michael Gibson on guitar, Rob Veal on bass and John Crist on drums) that does balladry and hard rock equally well. Scattered throughout are contributions from Buck, Mike Mills, John Keane, David Blackmon and Tim White, with Chesnutt providing occasional backing vocals. Much of the album consists of character studies of life in the small-town South; indeed, the shadow of what Chesnutt once described as "that most famous Georgia college town" - or at least how we perceive small towns - looms large over the record.
Its songs are those of everyday small-scale misery where there is nothing romantic about rural life. One would be hard-pressed to find a character more pitiful than the nameless protagonist - a one-time, and one assumes, anonymous musician - of country weeper "A Trailer's a Trailer." Its desolate images - a swig of warm beer, a baby crying above the buzzing of a window fan, a broken-down shitbox Dodge in the yard (of course), a pawned guitar, his inability to correctly sing a song he knows by heart - are accented by fiddle and pedal steel and all convey a seemingly hopeless situation. What prevents the song from being just another clichéd, booze-soaked honky tune are its narrative details: a faded bumper sticker of a shark in sunglasses that deadpans "Ain't life hard;" a domestic fight after "The Cosby Show;" a cigarette lit on a hot plate. By the end of the song the man doesn't have much to show for himself other than some hard-learned wisdom: "A dead end's a dead end/ And a trailer's a trailer/ Even if it's double wide."
Several of Kitty's other characters similarly lead lives on the skids. Images of restlessness and boredom mixed with loneliness are frequent. "Tracy's Calendar" describes the archetypal sad-eyed female, this one apparently with a mental or physical illness, while the disconcertingly jaunty arrangement of "Been Meaning To Do" belies the desperation experienced by someone who wakes up to "another morning in sunshine hell" and can only pathetically "count your blessings and . . . come up short." This type of ennui also defines "Town," a somber ballad that examines how two polar opposites react to the confines of their hometown; delinquent Johnny lights up a Salvation Army box by making a Molotov cocktail from a "Boone's Farm bottle and an Aerosmith T-shirt and some gas from his daddy's car," while "daddy's perfect girl" Julie meets a man with a "greasy frown" and ends up with a ripped dress and "tears in her eyes/ Little bruises on her thighs." They beg for Jesus to get them the hell out; we never find out how their stories end, and we probably don't want to.
"If you think I'm being cynical/ Well yeah, you're probably right," McBride sings on "Cabaret College," and he's not joking. The title act of "Consummation" brings nothing but sadness and is reduced to a series of post-deed excuses - "You'll blame the wine and I'll blame the weather" - while on the combative "Dropping" he rails against a woman who's "dropping your trousers without any shame." Even the album's rare moments of humor are coated in such cynicism. The rollicking "Drivin' Blind" describes a woman who's either got the world by the balls or is cold as hell as she mocks the narrator as nothing more than a "nickel a half dozen" - dude sheepishly agrees - and is unmoved by a man begging for food. The satirical "The Coach's Wife" is driven by White's raucous barroom piano as McBride's ramshackle vocals talk about the title figure, an absolute souse who drinks "gin with champagne chasers" and dreams of a career in politics. Even the album's most tender moments - the childhood remembrances of "G.I. Joe" - are offset by the fact that those simple days exist only in memory. It's fitting that the album ends with the fire-and-brimstone, and probably shady, radio evangelist of "Brother Shiloh Collins."
Available on iTunes but a complete bitch to track down an original copy of, it's likely that for the near future not too many new listeners will come around to Kitty. It's worth the effort to locate a copy though, and of all the great lost Southern rock operas that have come out of Athens, few are better crafted and more deserving of recognition than Kitty.
The Dashboard Saviors
Kitty
1992
The Dashboard Saviors released three studio albums in four years - 1992's Kitty, 1993's Spinnin On Down and 1995's Love Sorrow Hatred Madness - before disbanding. Not that many people outside of Athens, GA noticed. The band was met with commercial and critical indifference throughout their brief career; a feature write-up in Rolling Stone's "New Faces" section in December 1992 was the closest the group ever came to sucking at the mainstream teat, and time has done little enhance the band's legacy. Perhaps the supreme insult, Saviors vocalist Todd McBride is better known for his connection to Vic Chesnutt than for his work with his own band: he played with Chesnutt in the La Di Das and also asked the musician to write a song with the line that opens "Isadora Duncan" on Little.
Produced by Peter Buck, Kitty remains an overlooked masterwork, with scratchy, sometimes slightly polished country-rock songs featuring McBride's nasal, reedy vocals and a core group (Michael Gibson on guitar, Rob Veal on bass and John Crist on drums) that does balladry and hard rock equally well. Scattered throughout are contributions from Buck, Mike Mills, John Keane, David Blackmon and Tim White, with Chesnutt providing occasional backing vocals. Much of the album consists of character studies of life in the small-town South; indeed, the shadow of what Chesnutt once described as "that most famous Georgia college town" - or at least how we perceive small towns - looms large over the record.
Its songs are those of everyday small-scale misery where there is nothing romantic about rural life. One would be hard-pressed to find a character more pitiful than the nameless protagonist - a one-time, and one assumes, anonymous musician - of country weeper "A Trailer's a Trailer." Its desolate images - a swig of warm beer, a baby crying above the buzzing of a window fan, a broken-down shitbox Dodge in the yard (of course), a pawned guitar, his inability to correctly sing a song he knows by heart - are accented by fiddle and pedal steel and all convey a seemingly hopeless situation. What prevents the song from being just another clichéd, booze-soaked honky tune are its narrative details: a faded bumper sticker of a shark in sunglasses that deadpans "Ain't life hard;" a domestic fight after "The Cosby Show;" a cigarette lit on a hot plate. By the end of the song the man doesn't have much to show for himself other than some hard-learned wisdom: "A dead end's a dead end/ And a trailer's a trailer/ Even if it's double wide."
Several of Kitty's other characters similarly lead lives on the skids. Images of restlessness and boredom mixed with loneliness are frequent. "Tracy's Calendar" describes the archetypal sad-eyed female, this one apparently with a mental or physical illness, while the disconcertingly jaunty arrangement of "Been Meaning To Do" belies the desperation experienced by someone who wakes up to "another morning in sunshine hell" and can only pathetically "count your blessings and . . . come up short." This type of ennui also defines "Town," a somber ballad that examines how two polar opposites react to the confines of their hometown; delinquent Johnny lights up a Salvation Army box by making a Molotov cocktail from a "Boone's Farm bottle and an Aerosmith T-shirt and some gas from his daddy's car," while "daddy's perfect girl" Julie meets a man with a "greasy frown" and ends up with a ripped dress and "tears in her eyes/ Little bruises on her thighs." They beg for Jesus to get them the hell out; we never find out how their stories end, and we probably don't want to.
"If you think I'm being cynical/ Well yeah, you're probably right," McBride sings on "Cabaret College," and he's not joking. The title act of "Consummation" brings nothing but sadness and is reduced to a series of post-deed excuses - "You'll blame the wine and I'll blame the weather" - while on the combative "Dropping" he rails against a woman who's "dropping your trousers without any shame." Even the album's rare moments of humor are coated in such cynicism. The rollicking "Drivin' Blind" describes a woman who's either got the world by the balls or is cold as hell as she mocks the narrator as nothing more than a "nickel a half dozen" - dude sheepishly agrees - and is unmoved by a man begging for food. The satirical "The Coach's Wife" is driven by White's raucous barroom piano as McBride's ramshackle vocals talk about the title figure, an absolute souse who drinks "gin with champagne chasers" and dreams of a career in politics. Even the album's most tender moments - the childhood remembrances of "G.I. Joe" - are offset by the fact that those simple days exist only in memory. It's fitting that the album ends with the fire-and-brimstone, and probably shady, radio evangelist of "Brother Shiloh Collins."
Available on iTunes but a complete bitch to track down an original copy of, it's likely that for the near future not too many new listeners will come around to Kitty. It's worth the effort to locate a copy though, and of all the great lost Southern rock operas that have come out of Athens, few are better crafted and more deserving of recognition than Kitty.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Music Review - The Baseball Project - Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails
As the story goes, in 1992 Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate) and Scott McCaughey (Minus 5 and Young Fresh Fellows) met for the first time in the bathroom of a concert venue in Seattle. They eventually discovered a shared interest in baseball and planned to create an album that focused on the sport’s history and players. Of such chance and borderline sanitary encounters are great ideas born.
15 years later – the duration of some American League games these days – the duo began writing and recording the album that would finally be released in 2008 as Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. Rounded out with drummer Linda Pitmon (Giant Smog) and Peter Buck (you know the band), the album contains mostly narrative songs about baseball’s history and folklore, and, variously, its legendary, eccentric, or otherwise tragic players. Incorporating musical styles like folk, pop, and indie (the haunting and melodic song “Fernando” includes a bit of each), the album is alternately humorous and poignant.
On its surface, the album is a true geekfest for hardcore baseball fans, who might enjoy the album more than those not familiar with the players and stories recalled in the songs. If the number of obscure players recounted here is any indication, Wynn and McCaughey clearly know their baseball past and present and could probably field a seriously badass fantasy team. “Harvey Haddix” is a damn funny tune that questions the definition of success and name checks all 17 pitchers who have thrown a perfect game. It’s probably also the first time Cy Young and Addie Joss have been mentioned in the same song. Another song explores the death of Ed Delahanty, a big swinging, hard-drinking, and skull-busting player who died under mysterious circumstances at Niagara Falls in 1903. Songs about more widely-known figures like Satchel Paige, Ted Williams, and Jackie Robinson provide some relief for those with only a cursory knowledge of the game’s history.
Yet it’s not accurate to dismiss the album as a pure vanity or one-off project solely about baseball. Many of the songs evoke larger themes and universal emotions by simply using baseball’s history and mythology as a backdrop.
Several songs explore how a public figure’s persona and legacy are shaped by both fellow players and the public. “Gratitude (for Curt Flood)” is written from the point of view of the former Cardinals player, who successfully challenged the reserve clause that prevented players from becoming free agents. And boy, is he pissed; the song finds Flood unrecognized, unappreciated, and ignored by the game’s current millionaires: “On the day that I died and they laid me in the ground where was everybody? They couldn’t be found. I’m gone and they don’t know my name. No plaque, no speech, no hall of fame.”
Similarly, “Broken Man” takes a largely sympathetic approach to the story of former slugger and hulking wall of muscle Mark McGwire, who went from being baseball’s savior as he chased and eventually shattered Roger Maris’ home run record in 1998 to an outcast after his evasive and embarrassing showing during the Senate’s steroid investigation confirmed his guilt to many.
Other songs are heavily saturated with nostalgia and mortality. Opening track “Past Time” invokes the names of players from past eras and subtly questions baseball’s relevance in our current era (and also features a nice rhyme of “the Dimaggios, Shoeless Joe, Minnie Minoso, and Yo La Tengo”). “Long Before My Time” finds a still-young Sandy Koufax aged beyond his 30 years, struggling to decide whether to retire and questioning what the game has really given him: “The summer game has let me down, standing lonely on the mound. A crossroads only I can see between oblivion and destiny.”
Standout track “Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays” continues these themes as it contrasts the narrator’s fond memories of going to games with his father to see Mays in his 1965 prime with seeing Mays in 1973, when the outfielder’s skills had greatly diminished. It’s a layered and complex song; the narrator looks back at these games with both fondness and a twinge of sadness. The aging figure of Mays serves as a reminder that those days are long gone.
The album’s liner notes and design also deserve mention. The liner notes provide sufficient historical background to the songs and thus add much-needed information for those who don’t know Frank Viola from Frankie Valli; after all, Harvey Haddix and Ed Delahanty aren’t exactly household names. The album’s design is likewise superb. Clever without being overly cute, the back cover lists the song order like a manager’s lineup card, and also has each band member’s name included on their own vintage Topps baseball card (in the uniform of each member’s hometown team, no less).
As a concept album about baseball, Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails is filled with enough baseball lore to make even Peter Gammons giddy. What makes it truly succeed is its ability to convey larger themes that extend far beyond the confines of the game.
15 years later – the duration of some American League games these days – the duo began writing and recording the album that would finally be released in 2008 as Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails. Rounded out with drummer Linda Pitmon (Giant Smog) and Peter Buck (you know the band), the album contains mostly narrative songs about baseball’s history and folklore, and, variously, its legendary, eccentric, or otherwise tragic players. Incorporating musical styles like folk, pop, and indie (the haunting and melodic song “Fernando” includes a bit of each), the album is alternately humorous and poignant.
On its surface, the album is a true geekfest for hardcore baseball fans, who might enjoy the album more than those not familiar with the players and stories recalled in the songs. If the number of obscure players recounted here is any indication, Wynn and McCaughey clearly know their baseball past and present and could probably field a seriously badass fantasy team. “Harvey Haddix” is a damn funny tune that questions the definition of success and name checks all 17 pitchers who have thrown a perfect game. It’s probably also the first time Cy Young and Addie Joss have been mentioned in the same song. Another song explores the death of Ed Delahanty, a big swinging, hard-drinking, and skull-busting player who died under mysterious circumstances at Niagara Falls in 1903. Songs about more widely-known figures like Satchel Paige, Ted Williams, and Jackie Robinson provide some relief for those with only a cursory knowledge of the game’s history.
Yet it’s not accurate to dismiss the album as a pure vanity or one-off project solely about baseball. Many of the songs evoke larger themes and universal emotions by simply using baseball’s history and mythology as a backdrop.
Several songs explore how a public figure’s persona and legacy are shaped by both fellow players and the public. “Gratitude (for Curt Flood)” is written from the point of view of the former Cardinals player, who successfully challenged the reserve clause that prevented players from becoming free agents. And boy, is he pissed; the song finds Flood unrecognized, unappreciated, and ignored by the game’s current millionaires: “On the day that I died and they laid me in the ground where was everybody? They couldn’t be found. I’m gone and they don’t know my name. No plaque, no speech, no hall of fame.”
Similarly, “Broken Man” takes a largely sympathetic approach to the story of former slugger and hulking wall of muscle Mark McGwire, who went from being baseball’s savior as he chased and eventually shattered Roger Maris’ home run record in 1998 to an outcast after his evasive and embarrassing showing during the Senate’s steroid investigation confirmed his guilt to many.
Other songs are heavily saturated with nostalgia and mortality. Opening track “Past Time” invokes the names of players from past eras and subtly questions baseball’s relevance in our current era (and also features a nice rhyme of “the Dimaggios, Shoeless Joe, Minnie Minoso, and Yo La Tengo”). “Long Before My Time” finds a still-young Sandy Koufax aged beyond his 30 years, struggling to decide whether to retire and questioning what the game has really given him: “The summer game has let me down, standing lonely on the mound. A crossroads only I can see between oblivion and destiny.”
Standout track “Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays” continues these themes as it contrasts the narrator’s fond memories of going to games with his father to see Mays in his 1965 prime with seeing Mays in 1973, when the outfielder’s skills had greatly diminished. It’s a layered and complex song; the narrator looks back at these games with both fondness and a twinge of sadness. The aging figure of Mays serves as a reminder that those days are long gone.
The album’s liner notes and design also deserve mention. The liner notes provide sufficient historical background to the songs and thus add much-needed information for those who don’t know Frank Viola from Frankie Valli; after all, Harvey Haddix and Ed Delahanty aren’t exactly household names. The album’s design is likewise superb. Clever without being overly cute, the back cover lists the song order like a manager’s lineup card, and also has each band member’s name included on their own vintage Topps baseball card (in the uniform of each member’s hometown team, no less).
As a concept album about baseball, Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails is filled with enough baseball lore to make even Peter Gammons giddy. What makes it truly succeed is its ability to convey larger themes that extend far beyond the confines of the game.
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